Sunday, 30 January 2011

So you have a spill. What would you use to clean it up? If you're at home and spilled some coffee, you'd probably use a paper towel. If you're at an industrial facility and the spill involves oil or other hydrocarbon chemicals, you need something stronger -- oil absorbent pads or rolls. Read on to find out more about how you can use them to clean up a whole range of messes.

The principle is the same. You have a pad or towel that mops up the errant fluid. If you have to clean up a lot of oil, you'll need either a lot of absorbent pads, or you need to have another type of oil absorbent that can remove a larger amount of oil.

But here's the thing. Just picture it. Just like you may have found yourself in the middle of a mess of crumpled up soiled paper towels when you were cleaning up a big spill in the kitchen, you can find yourself with a whole lot of oil drenched oil absorbent pads. But there s a work-around for that...

You see, if you just mop up the oil with one pad after the other, you might end up using up a whole box or a whole roll of them. And the cost of those pads, event though they are basically quite inexpensive, can add up when you use a whole lot of them. So you don't.

Instead, you use a hand wringer and wring out those pads so you can reuse them. That's right. You can wring the oil out of those absorbent pads, collect it in a drum, and use the pad to mop up more oil.

That's a winning combination. Instead of going through a whole box, you may be able to clean up a substantial spill with a handful of pads instead. That's not only good for the environment, but for your pocketbook as well.

So how will you find the right absorbent pads. As is the case with paper towels, quality can vary widely. Some pads will barely clean up a bit of oil, while others absorb it like a thirsty terry cloth towel.

The best way to make sure to get high quality pads that actually do what you expect them to do is to shop with a high quality vendor. They can tell you which ones to pick, and you can also be assured that they meet the highest quality standards. They're bonded, approved for use in traffic areas, and they can even be used in low lint applications.

And, of course, since they're oil absorbent pads, they will repel water and are therefore ideally suited to removing oil from bodies of water.

Want to know more about oil absorbent pads? Get valuable tips and the latest news about absorbents and other environmental safety products on Travis Zdrazil's Safety Maintenance News blog and get his free newsletter too. Travis is an expert on environmental safety products and has supplied businesses with products to aid in meeting EPA and OSHA requirements for more than 10 years.